Pacific Magazine > Daily News

Logging Threatens 16 Endemic Bird Species

By Alexander Rheeney in Port Moresby
Thursday: January 31, 2008

Logging is threatening 16 endemic bird species on Papua New Guinea’s New Britain Island, a satellite image-based study has revealed.

The satellite images of forest clearing, which were captured in a study published in the journal Biological Conservation, has prompted conservationists to call for urgent action to protect what remains of rainforest in New Britain.

According to scientists from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, BirdLife International, Birds Australia, Conservation International, Australian-based Semioptera Pty Ltd., and the Institute for Environment and Sustainability (Joint Research Centre of the European Commission), before and after satellite pictures of New Britain show that 12 per cent of forest including 20 per cent of lowland forest was cleared between 1989 and 2000, badly affecting 21 bird species including 16 species found no-where else in the world.

As a result of the study, 10 bird species could be given more serious threat classifications by the IUCN-World Conservation Union when its updated ‘red list’ is published this spring.

“The area is unique and should be better protected and managed, we think the rate of deforestation is accelerating and is already higher than the average for South-East Asia. The demand for timber and palm oil is likely to be driving this destruction and if nothing is done soon, some of New Britain’s endemic species could disappear for good. Logging in the last 20 years has already left at least 10 birds close to extinction and if the rate of deforestation continues, all forest below 200 m will be gone by 2060,” said the study’s lead author Dr Graeme Buchanan.

The study contrasted satellite photos of New Britain taken 11 years apart. For the first time, the images were compared with the habitats of New Britain’s birds to assess how each species was affected.
Six species, including the Bismarck kingfisher and green-fronted hanging-parrot, had lost or were predicted to lose more than one fifth of their habitat. The scientists concluded that numbers of these two species had probably dropped by more than 30 per cent.
Another 23 birds had lost over 10 per cent of habitat including the yellowish imperial-pigeon, whose population may have fallen by nearly a third. Hardest hit of endemic birds were the slaty-mantled sparrow-hawk, New Britain bronze-wing and black honey-buzzard.

Dr Stuart Butchart, another co-author of the study from BirdLife International, also blamed oil palm for the loss of forest cover.

“New Britain’s endemic birds are being driven to extinction by our thirst for palm oil, which is widely used in foodstuffs and industry. After wiping out the lowland forests of Malaysia and Indonesia, companies are now moving eastwards, to New Guinea and Melanesia, where they now threaten a whole new suite of species,” he said in a statement.

The study is the first to use satellite imagery to assess the threats facing individual bird species and conservationists say the technique could be invaluable in surveying other parts of the region where access is poor or an area too vast to cover on the ground.